Milestone #1
My largest setback was the fact that Shane took all of the books about Shay’s Rebellion out of our library. But other than that we’re both in pretty good shape. So, together we have a number of books and journal articles. Otherwise we’ve had no real setbacks. It’s been relatively easy finding sources, like I said our library had a number of good books on the rebellion. I poked around JSTOR and found quite a few journal articles; “Shays’ Rebellion: An Episode in American State-Making,” “A Sign Taken for History: Daniel Shays’ Memorial in Petersham, Massachusetts,” “Shays’s Rebellion and Its Aftermath: A View from Springfield, Massachusetts, 1787.” That’s just to name a few.
To split up the work for our first milestone, Shane and I decided to split up what information each of us would be looking for. He looked for sources that focused more on the effects of the rebellion while I gathered as much information about the rebellion as I could. I hoped to find a number of different sources that would provide a good basis for viewers who knew little to nothing about the rebellion. I’m hoping these sources provides us with lots of names, dates, and places so we can have a number of dates for our timelines, places for maps and people to find images of to decorate our site with.
The time Shane and I have spent together we’ve discussed our findings and it is clear that we both have good amounts of information. From the reasons the rebellion started due to a depression in 1785, a weak national government, and worthless paper currency. The battle at the Springfield Armory where half a dozen rebels were killed and the rest routed and the battle of Petersham (a place in Massachusetts I’ve never even heard of, had to look it up on a map). These led finally the implications the rebellion had on the National Convention and the writing of the Constitution. We have a number of good strong sources to flesh out all of these topics and more.
All in all, the project is coming together swimmingly. Shane hopes to head to the Springfield Armory to take some pictures. I’ll probably find mine online of people involved in the rebellion and whatnot. We have a number of resources from different years dating back to the early 1800s all the way up to 2013. We have a good grasp on the basic information and and looking forward to start working on the maps, timelines and write-ups for the website.
You guys are making great progress and it sounds like you have a set plan of attack for the rest of your website. Having pictures that you guys take, as well as, pictures from online sources will give you a nice range of images that will allow for a better understanding of Shays’ Rebellion. Your first sentence made me laugh because Claire and I had a similar experience. We took out the books from the library together, but I had hoarded them in my room while doing research one night and left them there. We also had a slight issue when we were writing two of the sections on our website. We both needed the same book so it was necessary to have time management so the other person could finish their section as well.